Thanksgiving is a time for coming together and appreciating the past year. OK, 2020 has not been the best, but maybe that means pick-me-ups are needed even more. The Marvel Cinematic Universe is something else that has been absent this year, so reliving these heart-warming highlights from the franchise should help create the seasonal mood.
Despite their impressive action set-pieces and grand interconnected continuity, people keep returning to the MCU for the far simpler reason that they enjoy the characters. Often it is the character-moments in-between the superheroics that they get most attached to. A lot of the time, sincere emotional moments can become buried in snark and wisecracks. But every now and then, moments of heart-warming wholesomeness can also break through.
The first Thor has the God of Thunder (Chris Hemsworth) become stripped of his powers and sent to earth. This also means he cannot actually “be Thor” for the majority of the film. But this builds to a satisfying climax where Thor defends a small town in New Mexico against The Destroyer, even without his powers. His sacrifice proves that Thor is now worthy again, leading to a triumphant scene of Mjolnir flying back to him and restoring Thor to his godly glory. Not only is this a rousing scene of Thor powering-up, but an emotional catharsis of him regaining his father Odin’s (Anthony Hopkins) approval.
Back in 2011, many seriously wondered how you could make a movie about a character so seemingly one-dimensional and corny as ‘Captain America’ for modern audiences. Captain America: The First Avenger solved this by being an incredibly earnest old-fashioned film, focusing as much on the noble spirit of Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) as it does his super-soldier abilities. This comes into focus when Steve shares a moment with Dr. Erskine (Stanley Tucci) the night before his life-changing experiment. Erskine tells him how “the strong man who has known power all his life has no respect for that power. But a weak man knows the value of strength, and knows compassion”. It’s a warm moment that reaffirms Captain America’s greatest gift is not his outer strength, but his inner heart.
The main theme of 2012’s The Avengers was “can The Avengers work together?”, a meta-question of whether these different franchises and individuals can fit as more than the sum of their parts. The movie has them bristle against each other, but at the start of the extended third-act battle of New York, Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) – often the most cynical of the group – outlines to Loki (Tom Hiddleston) how they are unbeatable. He runs through the team members (except himself), proving his newfound belief in their combined cause. And even after Loki throws him off the building, Tony suits up as Iron Man and reminds Loki “there’s one other person you pissed off… his name was Phil”. It’s a small air-punch moment that shows his affection for Phil Coulson (Clark Gregg), and that even though they couldn’t save him (disregarding his resurrection in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.), at least they could avenge him.
Most MCU films are comedic, and Guardians of the Galaxy is one of the funniest, yet it’s also one of the most emotional. This comes into focus when Star-Lord (Chris Pratt) attempts to motivate the gang to save the galaxy, albeit calling them “losers” in the process. But it’s accurate, the Guardians are all “people who have lost stuff”, outsiders and misfits. Before that point, this scene was typically jokey, the group roasting Star-Lord for having “12% of a plan”. But afterwards their comedic defense-mechanism falls away, and they sullenly consider how Star-Lord is “asking [them] to die”. But Star-Lord’s voice-breaking sincerity about having a chance to “not run away” motivates the rest to rally together. Sure, Rocket Raccoon (Bradley Cooper) might joke about them all “standing in a circle”, but the point is they’ve all committed to it anyway.
For the world’s most popular super-team, the Avengers don’t actually spend much time together, having been assembled in The Avengers and disbanding in Captain America: Civil War. Therefore, Avengers: Age of Ultron is the only film they are active the entire time. Subsequently, its really the only time we see their downtime in-between missions. Having successful retrieved Loki’s Spectre, the Avengers have a party to celebrate and hold a light-hearted competition about trying to lift Mjolnir.
Yes, this hints towards Avengers: Endgame, but on its own it also reveals the different characters’ thoughts towards their self-worth; Iron Man is desperate to prove his capacity, Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo) turns it into an awkward joke, and Black Widow (Scarlett Johannsson) doesn’t even want to try. But most of all, it’s a nice simple moment of the Avengers hanging out, enhanced by the casual hand-held camerawork, that shows the MCU is not built on spectacle but simply on spending time with likable characters.
Guardians of the Galaxy vol. 2 sees Star-Lord struggling with his ego, his cocky self-esteem, and his Ego (Kurt Russell), his superpowered Celestial father who wishes to take over the universe. As Ego extracts Star-Lord’s essence to complete his plan, Peter Quill sees his friends battling and dying around him, and through flashes of heart-warming intimate scenes with each of them, finds the strength the fight back. In an epic Dragon Ball Z-esque powerup, set to Fleetwood Mac’s “The Chain”, Peter rejects his father’s ego-centrism and fights to protect his friends and family as worthwhile pieces of larger chain.
Aside from his shrinking abilities, one thing that distinguished Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) is that he’s also a dad (until Iron Man became one in Endgame, another example of the feud between the Starks and Ant-Man). In Ant-Man and the Wasp, Scott is under house-arrest for fighting on the side of Captain America during Civil War. But Scott makes the most of his lockdown by building an extravagant play-den for his daughter Cassie (Abby Ryder Fortson), rolling out his charming dad-energy through playing with her. It isn’t the most rousing or important scene in the MCU, but its this dedication and sweetness that makes Ant-Man so likable, and is the what heart-warming scenes are all about.
There’s a reason the final battle from Avengers: Endgame has become such a resonant moment. After Thanos (Josh Brolin) has invaded Earth (again), Captain America looks completely isolated and outmatched. But as he readies himself again, the small crackling voice of Falcon (Anthony Mackie) tells him “on your left”. Avengers: Endgame is a film filled with call-backs, literally time-traveling back to previous MCU movies. “On your left” references Cap and Falcon’s workout banter from Captain America: The Winter Soldier, and capitalizes on the emotional investment built into not only that, but all of the extra characters who were disintegrated in Avengers: Infinity War.
Endgame is the reverse of that devastation, having all of the MCU characters coming together to stand together against Thanos and his army. There is palpable excitement in simply seeing them all appear together, and in knowing the tide of the fight has turned. This moment works by paying off the experimental shared-universe of the MCU, becoming the culmination of the saga by showing the heart-warming return of these character now finally back together on the big screen.
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